Yea! When we woke up, it was fairly clear outside. I bailed on the morning dive, because it was a wreck, which isn’t really my thing. So I could take my time, answer emails and sit on the back deck and chill before Matt woke up. At some point, I noticed that the wind was starting to blow with intention across the water, and I turned my head up to the sky to see lots of dark clouds rolling in. Egad….back inside I unpack my raincoat and pull out one of the nifty umbrellas they have in our room. Matt and I head to breakfast through the wind and rain, and at one point I have to fixedly hold my umbrella to my side and push against the wind to make any progress. He put his down, but I had fun working with mother nature. Someone opened one of the glass folding doors into the dining room. Everyone was tucked safely inside with homey smells and we all marveled at how the storm had whipped up big, non-stop waves marching onto shore. It was almost like looking out of a boat, because the waves were coming up so close. I had a panicky thought that it wouldn’t take much to have the waves wash over the whole damn island, but luckily, Matt talked sense into me.
After breakfast we headed back to the bungalow. Things had slowed a bit, but the wind was still blowing and I was still so happy I wasn’t out on the dive. I’ll have to wait to see about the 3 pm dive, which I’m signed up for (ending a sentence with a proposition here!). We played cribbage and each us pegged a win. The vibe on the island is much better for my game, evidently.
By the time to needed to head to the dive boat, things were much calmer, although still kinda windy on the north side (we’re on the south side, which is pretty well protected). Off we go, with a boat of eleven. We jump in and I’m with one other diver and a divemaster I haven’t met before. We head down and see a island oval-shaped coral island. We are going to circle this, then swim about 20 meter to check out two separate towers of coral in the same area. I’m in fishy land! As I float through the water, which has pretty good visibility, I continually do a 360 to take in the whole scene (and of course to scan the periphery for large creatures). I remember to look above me as well. On several occasions, I am swimming through schools of hundreds (and sometimes seems like thousands) of one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish! There are orange ones, the color of dreamsicles, with bright purple eyes, cobal blue two inch fish, each with a painted stripe of yellow down its back, clouds of little silver flashes that move in unison just like swimmy (children’s book), large oval black fish, each with a large white band down their center, inch long clear fish that look like nothing but bony skeletons with gelatin over top, and small black ones with white forked tails. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. We see three turtles, each chawing on coral. At one point, one of them decides to swim right toward and under me. It’s a stellar dive and makes me sigh with appreciation for the still healthy reefs and the beauty of the undersea world.
Whenever we finish a dive, someone comes around to ask for our bottom time, our deepest depth and the amount of air left in our tank when we finished. I told the divemaster how much air I had left and he was incredulous. I thought he was not believing my pounds, as opposed to bars, but when I told him in bars how much I had left, he admonished me and said I needed to remember to breathe when underwater!
Back to the bungalow to shower, then to the bar for a banana milkshake and laying out on a towel in the adjacent sand to warm up and soak in some Vitamin D. No telling how long we will have the sun! On the way back to the room, I see a game of cricket in full swing (pun intended) on the mini-field:
Matt and I both skipped lunch, so we head to dinner early (for us) around 7. Asian buffet tonight and we can’t decide which way to go first. Sushi bar? Thai curry stir fry? Freshly grilled satay? Mmmmm, can’t go wrong tonight. I have given Matt the choice, and it’s night snorkel after a little rest/digest time. Around 9, we plod down to the dive shop to pick up our gear and then walk to the end of the pier (it has two tall street type lamps on it). Down the ladder and into the water, with our super-duper German torches. We paddle around and as always, it’s fun to float around at night when everything is so quiet, except for the sound of cracklingis don’t think that’s fish eating coral, cuz most are sleeping. Do you know what that noise is? If so, let me know. Don’t see anything too unusual: a couple of very red lion fish, a super fat moray eel all tangled in a coral head, a parrot fish sleeping way in some coral with his protective bubble around him (Matt sees a little fish come up to it and actually bounce off the bubble) and one turtle heading off to the turtle disco. We head back towards the light, ascend the ladder and squish squash our way to the dive shop to drop off our gear and head back for some warm showers and sleep.